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Exclusive sports rights will be a critical asset for
streaming services this year as new figures from Ampere Analysis demonstrate
how the content has been successfully used to attract users and keep them
engaged on platforms long term.
And there’s potential for bigger opportunity as the business
rationale for aggregating fan favorite sports content on a single holistic
platform is also underscored by Ampere’s polling of consumers across markets.
We will see a continuation of a trend from 2024 where,
according to Ampere’s SVOD economics data, exclusive coverage of key sports
helped streamers gain and retain subs in saturated markets, such as the U.S.
and the UK.
Peacock's exclusive NFL coverage of the Miami Dolphins
versus the Kansas City Chiefs in January 2024 game brought in a
record-breaking 2.5 million U.S subscribers one-day sign up for the
Comcast/NBCU streamer and nearly 60% of these are still active a year after the
game.
A month later, 3.7 million U.S. subscribers flocked to CBS’
companion streamer Paramount+ to watch Patrick Mahomes lead the Chiefs to a
25-22 victory over the 49ers at Super Bowl LVIII. Nearly half of sign-ups to
Paramount+ then stayed on the platform for at least three months, per Ampere.
“These milestones highlighted the impact of exclusive sports
coverage for streamers in subscriber acquisition,” said Mayssa Jamil, senior
analyst at Ampere. “It indicates that users were either drawn to the platform’s
broader content offering—opting for a longer commitment where an annual plan
was available—, or they initially signed up just to watch the game but decided
to remain onboard after exploring the platform’s catalog.”
Netflix will have tracked similar behavior for its recent
exclusive live sports events. The Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson boxing bout in
November drove the streamer’s largest single day sign-ups since Ampere started
tracking this data in 2018 with 1.6 million new subscribers in the U.S. Netflix
chased that with two NFL games on Christmas Day, which according to
Ampere estimates landed an additional 700,000 subscribers. January’s debut of
WWE Raw (the start of a $5 billion ten-year deal) contributed another 250,000
new sign-ups.
Some 75% of subscribers to the Paul / Tyson fight are still
subscribed today, estimates Ampere. And over 85% of the NFL Christmas Day game
are also still believed to be subscribed to Netflix today. “Given that nearly
80% of the combined users were still subscribed as of the WWE premiere, it’s
likely that many stayed on the platform in anticipation of further live sports
content,” said Jamil.
“These examples highlight the ability of sports content to
capture a previously untapped user base that will subsequently engage with the
broader catalog,” said Daniel Harraghy, research manager of sports at Ampere.
Fragmentation justifies aggregation
Ampere’s survey of internet users between 18 and 64 across
all markets found that 46% said they felt overwhelmed by the number of
streaming services available but that nearly half (48%) of sports fans would be
willing to pay extra to have all their sport accessible from a single location.
“The increasing number of platforms and services acquiring
rights to sports properties seems to be driving fan preferences for easier
access to the sports they love,” he added.
Venu Sports, the sports mega-streamer proposed by Disney,
Warner Bros and Fox Sports, was to be such an aggregated service but this was
turned over when Disney decided to pact with FuboTV last month
(ending FuboTV’s legal challenge to its launch). Shortly after, the JV
partners dissolved Venu.
While there remains uncertainty as to how Disney will
integrate FuboTV (which in the merger announcement included
speculation of a new sports service featuring Disney's sports networks such as
ESPN+) Disney remains on track to launch a new DTC flagship for ESPN later this
year.
Ampere believe the ESPN flagship remains key to Disney’s
sport streaming strategy. “That's where ESPN are going to be committed in the
streaming space,” said Harraghy. “It’s a response to the decline of traditional
cable distributed TV. ESPN has a really attractive rights portfolio (including
UFC, MLB, NHL, PGA Tour golf and college sports) and the potential to be a
very strong offering for fans.
“Success will come from driving subscription growth
specifically from cord cutters without, at the same time, being a driver of
cord cutting. The carriage fees that ESPN gets from its TV partners in the US
remain very lucrative so Disney will not want to impact that adversely.”
What do young sports fans want? The data is complicated
Altman Solon's Global Sports Survey published at the
end of last year also confirmed that interest in live sports remains high
across all generations, with approximately 60% of sports fans across all
geographies saying they tune in to televised sports at least monthly.
However, it pointed out that sports rights holders risk
undermining future media rights values with high fees and paywalls. Younger
fans might be keen on sport but are unwilling or unable to pay for the live
event, it suggested. In its Digital Trends Report 2025 sports
producer IMG noted that fans are increasingly drawn towards community-focused
platforms like YouTube and Reddit.
Calling it a “serious problem” Altman Solon’s David Dellea
said short-form content cannot replace the unique commercial value of live
sports. “The critical question for rights holders is: how can we navigate
challenges of discovery and access to funnel younger audiences to a live
product that they want to watch?”
Ampere’s consumer data underscores a division between
younger demographics, who prefer to watch sports via streaming, and older fans
who prefer sports on linear TV. However, it also suggests that fans aged 18 to
34 years are actually willing to spend more on their favorite sports
content than older generations. Ampere’s data further suggests younger fans
spend more time watching live sports than they do engaging with non-live sports
including highlights, digital clips or podcasts.
“However, relative to the average, they spend a smaller
amount of time watching live sport,” clarified Harraghy. “They spend more time
than the average [sports fan] engaging with other types of sports content such
as engaging with athletes through social media, and more time than the average
watching highlights and clips from games.
“The fact that younger demographics are still watching live
sport more than they are with highlights suggest that live is still really
valuable,” he noted.
And since they want to watch sports via streaming, it
suggests streaming platforms in the sports space “are well positioned to be key
media rights buyers and broadcasters of the future.”
The analyst highlighted an opportunity to create “a really
holistic platform.”
He said, “There could be a really strong option where a
streamer is able to tap into audiences both with the live content and also
attract users to with new forms of social video clips and highlights packages.
Such a platform might also include fantasy gaming and betting.
“The streamers that will do well will be those that create a
really broad ecosystem that then attracts younger fans into it, not just
through the live rights but through everything else that they're engaging with
in the sports media space.”
Ad-supported live sports streaming
Streamers have been slower to invest in live sport than
other types of content. Part of that has been technological. Producing and
broadcasting live sport at scale is a different kind of challenge to on- demand
content. But the other challenge is monetizing those rights and that’s where
advertising plays a key role.
Most major streamers (Apple excluded) have all launched ad
tiers both domestically and in international markets signifying a shift in
their strategic focus towards maximizing ad reach and impressions.
“Sport is one of the last appointment to view pieces of
content that can sometimes bring in millions of fans to a single place at a
single time and that’s really attractive to advertisers,” said Harraghy.
Amazon for example has subtly shifted its sports strategy
from short periods of exclusivity (such as broadcasting a handful of live
English Premier League soccer fixtures a couple times a year in the UK) to
having major live sports content across every month of the year. In 2025, these
include in the U.S. WNBA, NWSL, NASCAR, NFL and NBA.
“Retaining sports fans for the full year and across full
seasons keeps customers within that Prime ecosystem, reduces churn and drives
additional revenue for Amazon beyond subscription payments,” the analyst said.
In an extensive blog post on LinkedIn, Gareth Capon,
the CEO at sport streaming specialist Grabyo, said investing in live
programming is no longer optional for streamers—"it's a necessity,” adding
that “advertising is the heart of the new battle in the streaming wars 2.0.
Streamers (including YouTube, which is paying the NFL a
reported $2 billion a year for Sunday Ticket games) are “banking on live
programming to not only draw in subscribers but also bring in lucrative
advertising deals that can rival traditional TV and promise access to the
under-35 demographic the advertisers care about,” he wrote.
Yet sports rights are expensive. Capon makes the point that
sports are IP you rent, but don’t own. ESPN/ABC, NBCU and Amazon Prime Video
for example are reportedly paying the NBA $76 billion over 11 years - an
increase of 160% per season.
“The tough part is that this only gives distributors the
right to broadcast the games, not to own the IP,” he wrote. “You cannot ‘own’ a
sport without buying it outright or creating a breakaway league or new
format. As media companies pivot to this new age, controlling live
content, especially sports, will be a linchpin of long-term success.”
Ampere’s Harraghy agreed that streamers face a
“profitability challenge” which is why we’ve seen rights holders carve out
smaller packages for streamers to date.
“There will be a slow burn transition as streamers gradually
start to make sense of how to monetize sports rights most effectively,” the
analyst commented. “With many streamers in the early stages of broadcasting
sport and still developing an understanding of its strategic merits, the race
for sports rights is likely to be a marathon, not a sprint.”
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